D&D 5E Zard's S Tier Archetypes

[TwoSix]

Oh, yeah, I generally lump streaming services and movies in with “TV”

Same. Especially considering the number of cable cord-cutters there are nowadays (myself among them). The only time I see a "network" show is on Hulu occasionally.

 

[Don Durito]

'Which class is better when they can reliably get a long rest in between most encounters
is a totally different question to 'which class is better when the adventuring day consists oaround 6 encounters and around 2 short rests?'

• If you can reliably nova via the DM being unable or unwilling to police the adventuring day, and it routinely consisting of a single encounter, then long rest dependent classes and subclasses are better (for obvious reasons).
• If your DM does police the adventuring day and roughly cleaves to the (6 or so encounter/ 2 or so short rest) median, then classes more or less balance out.
• If your DM routinely pushes longer adventuring days (via gritty rest variants or whatever) where long rests are rare, and short rests quite common, then Short rest dependent classes and subclasses are better (for obvious reasons).

Classes gain the majority of their oomph via short and long rest resources (spell slots, Ki points, rages, SP, superiority die, wild shapes channel divinity, second wind, action surge, indomitable, Bardic inspiration etc) and some classes are very short rest dependent, while others are very long rest dependent (with the Rogue being largely rest neutral).

You cant meaningfully discuss which class (or subclass) is 'more powerful' without that context, and it varies from table to table depending largely on the DM's management of the adventuring day (and of course, player skill).

Look it's very simple. If we take 6-8 as the intended balancing point (which it really isn't - people need to go back and read the DMG - it's only 6-8 if those encounters are medium/hard, which in 5e terms means 'easy' - throw in one or two 'deadly' encounters and that number comes down), then we have to consider the likelihood of variation.

If over the course of five adventuring days you have 6,7,8,9,6 combats then you;re mostly within range. If you have 6,,2,3,6,2 then you're trending low. I'd bet it's not unusual for tables to have a single combat in a day now and then. I'd be surprised if many tables ever have 14 combats in a day. Therefore when we consider classes we have to consider that they're sometimes going to only have one or two short rests in a day (and rarely if ever going to have four or more).

Therefore the point of my original post was that we need to consider versatilty across a number of rests per day.

 

[Don Durito]

Really, it isn't so much a system as much as "getting an S rank" or "being S tier" is simply a commonly utilized piece of video game jargon.

It may be common. I've probably heard it but probably filtered it out as jargon that was irrelevant to actualy playing a game.

 

[Blue]

I’m not sure what thread you’re referring to or what you said in it, but I assume it was probably pretty accurate. I mostly just found the idea that “almost nobody knows what S tier means” funny when tier lists are like their own genre of YouTube video.

I go on Youtube occasionally when I want to listen to 70s and 80s music. What Tier is Billy Joel?

EDIT: Wow, I was looking to make a quick joke (though it's true I barely use Youtube), but reading the rest of the thread seems that this has become a big topic. I have heard of S-tier, but not in any pervasive way. Actually I had guessed from context the S was Super tier, vs. A-D/E/F. Is that right? I watch little TV/podcasts/movies because I'd rather spend that time consuming media by reading. I play videogames, almost all single person, but have never come across a single one that has these tiers as part of the game. It must be part of the outside culture around some videogames instead of the actual videogames themselves. Still, we're gamers - I would expect a quick "here's what the ratings mean" and we will get it, much like whomever did the first color-coded class guide, without need to delve into the history of it except for those interested in that history on it's own merits.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I go on Youtube occasionally when I want to listen to 70s and 80s music. What Tier is Billy Joel?

do you honestly what someone to look for that tier list as it likely exists by now?

 

[Blue]

do you honestly what someone to look for that tier list as it likely exists by now?

Nah, I wanted to make a joke that not everyone uses Youtube like Charlaquin does. Then I finished reading the thread and realized this took over the thread. I put a big EDIT on my comment to address that, but it posted after you already saw it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I go on Youtube occasionally when I want to listen to 70s and 80s music. What Tier is Billy Joel?

Oh, S tier easily

EDIT: Wow, I was looking to make a quick joke (though it's true I barely use Youtube), but reading the rest of the thread seems that this has become a big topic. I have heard of S-tier, but not in any pervasive way. Actually I had guessed from context the S was Super tier, vs. A-D/E/F. Is that right?

Pretty much. I’m not sure if it stands for Super or Special, or something else, but as I mentioned earlier, putting S above A in a lettered ranking system started in Japan, and probably from the way they tiered concert ticket pricesnever mind I’m an idiot, it’s probably from the grading system in Japanese schools. But is now pretty common all over, and I think most people don’t really know why S is often placed above A.

I watch little TV/podcasts/movies because I'd rather spend that time consuming media by reading. I play videogames, almost all single person, but have never come across a single one that has these tiers as part of the game. It must be part of the outside culture around some videogames instead of the actual videogames themselves.

There are some video games that use lettered ranking systems - especially games where you receive a score for your performance in a level or something, you’ll sometimes get a letter grade, and especially in games with Japanese influence, S will be the highest grade achievable. But yeah, it’s more commonly a community thing outside the game, in competitive games like fighting games and MOBAs.

Still, we're gamers - I would expect a quick "here's what the ratings mean" and we will get it, much like whomever did the first color-coded class guide, without need to delve into the history of it except for those interested in that history on it's own merits.

Yeah, I would have figured people would put it together from context just like you did, but... here we are

 

[Don Durito]

Yeah, I would have figured people would put it together from context just like you did, but... here we are

Well I did put it together from context somewhat, but that can be wrong. So I asked.

And I remain confused about whether the concept of tiers is doing any work at all for the OP or whether it is purely about ranking.

That's the problem with putting things together from context. The general meaning of the words used is part of the context.

 

[jmartkdr2]

However, I just checked the stats and the % of people in the US that play videogames is staggering (according to my quick google-fu). Given I know almost no "gamers" I was floored by the number. Now, what % are serious gamers and how many play games with this type of ranking I don't know, but I am willing to believe it is significantly above the 8% of people (in the US) that have a masters level education!

There's a difference between 'people who play video games sometimes' (dang near everyone) and 'people who are involved in video game meta discussions / make video games a hobby' (still a lot). The gap is probably a minority but not an insignificant one.

For myself, I have heard of S tier but didn't know if it was good or bad offhand.

 

[Blue]

Look it's very simple. If we take 6-8 as the intended balancing point (which it really isn't - people need to go back and read the DMG - it's only 6-8 if those encounters are medium/hard, which in 5e terms means 'easy' throw in one or two 'deadly' encounters and that number comes down), then we have to consider the likelihood of variation.

If over the course of five adventurings day you have 6,7,8,9,6 combats then you;re mostly within range. If you have 6,5,2,3,6,2 hen you're trending low. I'd bet it's not unusual for tables to have a single combat in a day now and then. I'd be surprised if many tables ever have 14 combats in a day. Therefore when we consider classes we have to consider that they're sometimes going to only have one or two short rests in a day (and rarely if ever going to have four or more).

Therefore the point of my original post was that we need to consider versatilty across a number of rests per day.

Since we do seem to be all over tangents in this thread, I don't mind mentioning this:

The 6-8 encounters deals with two different and important issues. One is deadliness, and you can throw few/more deadly encounters and balance it.

The other is the balance point between at-will (like rogues or EB-only warlocks) and long-rest recovery classes (like casters) and some hybrids (like paladins or barbarians). For that it comes down to efficiency per action. For example a over a statistically significant number of rounds a rogue or an EBing warlock will have a fairly static expected output per round.

For casters on the other hand, an action using a highest level slot and an action with a cantrip can vary significantly. High level spells will do more than a martial at-will action, which will do more than a cantrip. ("Do more" is subjective because much magic doesn't do single target damage, but still able to be evaluated if in a soft way.)

So there needs to have enough actions occurring in the day to force enough cantrip usage to average into the per-action value of the high level slots to bring down that effectiveness to what the at-will classes are doing. Otherwise the long-rest-recovery classes have a higher average effectiveness per action, for the same number of actions, and are overpowered.

And it's even a bit more complex than that. You can't just have long but few combats because a number of long-rest recovery uses are more efficient than more, shorter combats. A 1-minute buff will last a 3 round combat or an 8 round combat, with more total effectiveness for the action used to cast it in the latter case. Another easy way to think about it is what's more effective - a barbarian who can rage in half the combats for the day or in all of them? So simply lengthening combats linearally helps but is not enough.

(And all of this ignores short-rest recovery classes, which can be handled differently by DMs as well.)

This isn't saying that every adventuring day should be 6-8 combats. This is saying that the balance point should have as many times above that as below that. (And my personal opinion is I wish they gave out a lot less slots and balanced it significantly lower becuase no one I know regularly runs that many encounters, including myself.)

So I am with you that it's critically important when rating classes and subclasses that everyone does so in the same context in terms of encounters per day and per short rest because it's critically important in relative class power.